Students at a Taiwan senior high school successfully videoconferenced with their peers in Malawi, producing a valuable cultural exchange that has led to a rethink of stereotypes on both sides since the experiment began March 21.
With the aid of Bjorgaas Social Welfare Foundation, a local nongovernmental organization conducting aid programs in the southeastern African nation, students at National Lo-Tung Senior High School in Yilan County have established relations with their counterparts at Mzuzu Government Secondary School in Malawi. This has allowed them to share their respective countries’ culture, geography, history, music and food via the Internet.
Local youth were impressed with their Malawian peers. “They are not embarrassed to show us who they really are,” student Wang Nai-en said. “Nor are they shy about singing or playing musical instruments, whereas Taiwan students are poor at expressing themselves.”
But this soon changed as a result of the online interaction. “In fact, it was Malawians who encouraged many of us to express ourselves,” Wang added.
Lo-Tung students were also surprised when they compared their curriculum with that of Mzuzu. They found teenagers in Malawi can choose vocational subjects like carpentry and sewing, while Taiwan high school students concentrate on academic subjects such as classical Chinese literature, English and math.
To help their friends in Malawi appreciate Taiwan delicacies, the local students asked Bjorgaas to fly pineapple cakes and sticky rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves over to Africa so as to introduce them in their next videoconference.
The local teenagers realized they might be better off materially than their Malawian peers, but repeated interactions eliminated any snobbishness. “We felt we were superior at the beginning of our videoconferences,” Wang said. “Now we understand it was merely another kind of stereotype.”
But real differences remain. According to Bjorgaas, to conduct the videoconferences Malawian students take a 30-minute minibus trip on a bumpy road to get to the foundation’s office in Mzuzu.
Rather than take their greater wealth for granted, the Taiwan students are working for change. Once they realized that their friends in Malawi can only afford one textbook for every 10 students, they launched a campaign to buy them more. These Yilan students collect used textbooks, sell them to a local recycling company and send the proceeds to Malawi to fund the book purchases. (SSC-SDH)
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